Man's Greatest Treasure
by alicenotinwonderland
Summary: Rowena Ravenclaw finds out what man's greatest treasure really is. But perhaps it is a lesson that comes too late.


"Rowena? Are you in here, child?" Solomon Ravenclaw peeked around a bookshelf and found his daughter sitting at one of the tables in the library, barely visible behind a stack of scrolls and her nose buried in another one. He sighed. "Rowena," he said, a little louder this time.

Rowena looked up, startled and stood immediately. "Father! My humblest apologies, I did not hear you." She blushed. "I was just reading about the fall of the Egyptian empire. It is most fascinating! This scroll is about the great library of Alexandria. It seems that wizards as strong and intelligent as they should have been prudent enough to use spells to make their scrolls resistant to fire. In fact, there is an essay by a renowned scholar that suggests the library may well be preserved underground and the one that burned down was a farce to satiate the attackers."

Solomon smiled with a mixture of indulgence and exasperation. "Ah Rowena, never have I seen a child with such a thirst for knowledge. Perhaps some day you shall find this great library, yes?"

Rowena nodded eagerly. "Oh there is so much to be learnt father! The world is a storehouse of knowledge and I believe it would be a much better place if everyone spent their time reading and learning rather than fighting useless battles for things as petty as more land or riches. Knowledge is far more precious than any of the materialistic things they may gain."

"The world could do without the fighting, I must admit." Solomon patted her head affectionately. "You are growing to be quite wise for all your twelve years of age." He chuckled at her rapt smile. He drew a diadem from a pocket and placed it on her head. "However, you are still a young lady of this castle and this glen. Lord Gryffindor will be coming to visit tomorrow with his young son. I expect you to draw yourself away from the library and attend to them. It would be nice if you spent some time with your mother and myself as well. We will not be as enduring as your knowledge, you know."

Rowena sighed. "Must I, father? It is only that my learning is so much more interesting than entertaining people."

He smiled sadly. "One day, Rowena, you will understand that there are greater treasures than knowledge. I only hope that it will be a happy lesson for you."

* * *

Was it wrong that she felt annoyed at being pulled away from working on her diadem project? Yes, her mother was very ill but she was dying; anyone with knowledge of the body would see that. Her idea of accumulating all the knowledge in the world into one object consumed her. She could think of little else these days.

Lady Ravenclaw lay on her bed, her breaths shallow and gasping. Rowena stood at the side, her hands clasped tightly together. She had studied these symptoms and she knew there was no cure. She could not understand why her father begged the Healer to do anything or offered to pay him any amount he desired. There was nothing the Healer _could_ do. A little knowledge would have prepared her father. There was no need for such an outpouring of grief. He would not be succumbing to his emotions and would instead be trying to make his wife as comfortable as possible in her last moments – again, things that he would have known had he read about the illness as Rowena had. She would let him use her diadem first when she was finished. He could become the wisest man in the world.

But for the first time in her life, Rowena's knowledge did not give her comfort. She pulled the blanket tighter around her mother, fluffed up her pillows and helped her sip some water. She had learnt that these things would ease her pain. But she had not learnt how to deal with the pain in her own heart when her mother gave her a weak smile and reached out a hand to adjust her diadem and brush her cheek. "Do not…do not let your love for knowledge…overshadow your love for the people you care about, my daughter," Rowena's mother said softly. Her last piece of advice to her daughter.

She watched her mother take her final breath and her father break down and sob over her body. She retreated to the library, with a curt, "Excuse me, father. I must continue working on my diadem." Knowledge would help her understand what she was feeling. People would appear and disappear in her life. But her knowledge would stay forever. She pulled the diadem off her head. She would make her knowledge endure.

It was two years later that she would visit her father on his deathbed. Rowena would remember what he said as she'd visited him only during his very last minutes – she had always been to busy with her work to make time for her ailing father – only during her own last minutes in the world. _"I wish I had never given you that diadem. You have lost sight of what is truly important, my child," _he had said with his final breath as she explained her absence_. "I hope one day you will see that and it will not be too late for you to start over."_

* * *

"It is extremely hard to court you when you have your nose in a book all the time, Rowena."

Rowena frowned at the interruption as she set aside the diadem she was experimenting with along with the books she'd been referring to and looked up. "If you brought me another book from your travels rather than a flower that will not last for more than a day, perhaps I would be impressed."

Gregory Baldwin sighed, setting the flower that he had brought back from the faraway land of the Romans. "You tinker with that diadem all the time. We are married, Rowena. A marriage takes two people. Can you not indulge me my interests as I do yours?"

"I see no fruitfulness in your interests. Voyages across the sea to acquire the most precious materials are of as much use as that flower. Nothing has fixed value for eternity."

"Except your precious knowledge, I suppose."

Rowena sighed and snapped her book shut. "What is it you want from me?"

"I want you to try! I want you to try to love me as you do your books. Can you not love me at least as much as you do the child growing in your belly? Do you not see me as a source of knowledge? I could tell you of things that I see during my voyages, things that are not written in your books! I could tell you of the night the cook's son was taken with scurvy and of the way the cook sat by his side all night, soothing him. I could describe the wonderment on the faces of the sailors as they beheld the beautiful columns that welcome us to Rome. I can tell you tales of compassion and kindness and human miracles that are not written in your books. Your diadem cannot store human emotions; how will you add that to it? A man is not made wise only by reading the written word."

"I know of these things, Gregory. I have read of them. Perhaps if I am successful in my attempts to infuse this diadem with all my knowledge, you can wear it and see that they are not important. There is no need of such emotions to be wise," Rowena snapped.

"You may know of them, Rowena, but you do not understand them. I hope that some day, you will realize that they are far more precious than all your knowledge. That diadem consumes your life! You never do anything apart from trying spell after spell on it. You should stop. There might come a time in your life when all the knowledge in the world cannot help you and only these emotions and the people you love can."

* * *

"How dare you!" Rowena slashed the air with her wand, knocking Gregory off his feet and slamming him into the wall. She snatched up her diadem from the fire he'd thrown it in, mindless of getting burnt. "You know how important my diadem is to me!" she shouted. "How dare you try to destroy it?"

"You know how important you are to me! You're destroying yourself by shutting yourself up in your chambers all day and night and working at your magic. Do my feelings mean nothing to you?" Gregory yelled back.

"This diadem is worth far more than your feelings! It is my life's work. It is going to help all of mankind. What can your feelings do?" Rowena hissed.

"They can help _you_! You spend far too much time with that diadem. Have you looked in a mirror? You've been pale and sickly. You haven't been taking care of yourself. You just gave birth two weeks ago. You need rest and relaxation. You cannot balance taking care of our daughter and your work! Please, Rowena, listen to reason," Gregory begged.

"There is no reason in your words. The only things that matter to me are my diadem and my daughter. I must continue with my work. I cannot let it lie idle."

"Rowena, please. Do not do this. Nothing is more precious to me than you and our daughter. How can you say that knowledge is man's greatest treasure then?"

Rowena's heart ached and she felt a pang of guilt as she looked into her husband's pleading eyes. But then her eyes returned to the diadem in her hands and the memory of his offence flooded back into her with all her rage. She turned away from him. "You are deluded. If you had any knowledge, you would agree with me."

Rowena rode through the rain that night, her magic keeping herself and her baby safe and warm. The diadem was secure in the bag she had slung over her shoulder. She could no longer stay with Gregory Baldwin. He was a hindrance to the work she was doing. He did not see the importance of it. She would take her maiden name and go to Godric Gryffindor. He had talked of starting a school for young minds. She – and her diadem - would be of far more use there.

* * *

"Mother, please help me with this painting."

"Not now, Helena, I am busy."

Helena pouted. "But you are _always_ with your books and that horrid diadem! You'll have them always and you keep saying that people do not live for as long as knowledge does. Shouldn't you then be spending time with people because you have lesser time with them?"

Rowena looked up. The child was seven and already had an unnerving grasp on logic. "I shall join you later, Helena."

"Can't you spare some time for me? Why do you always have to be with your work? Why should you make something that makes men wise? You yourself say that wisdom must be earned. What is the point of creating an object that will give them wisdom instantly then?"

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure. I wish to prove this to the world. Then we can stop the wars that ravage our lands. It is unfortunate that men of the world do not have the patience to earn wisdom over the years. I must give them a push in the right direction."

"Lord Gryffindor says his sons are his greatest treasure. I wish you felt the same way about me!"

Rowena sighed and went back to work as Helena stormed out of the room. She couldn't help but thinking about the number of times she had had such encounters with people. How they all claimed that emotions like love and friendship were more precious than her groundbreaking work. How could they not see the impact her diadem would have?

But she couldn't deny that pang of _something_ that she felt when the people she cared about told her that she was neglecting them in favour of her work. And she couldn't deny that she had always wondered if they were right.

* * *

"Where is Helena? Tell me Godric!"

"Rowena – I – you must understand – "

"I understand a great many things! Where is she?"

"I believe she ran away. I do not know where she is."

Rowena rushed out of the room, and hurried up to her tower. She pulled open the drawers and upset the scrolls and books on her table. She searched for a good half an hour before she sat down in the middle of the mess, sobbing. Her diadem was gone. Helena had taken the object that she had competed with for her mother's attention ever since she had been born.

And she had left Rowena with nothing.

* * *

It was a cruel twist of fate.

She had always thought that knowledge was the most precious thing in her life. But now all her knowledge told her that she was about to die. She was ill, there was no cure, she was old; death was inevitable. Her knowledge told her that her bad treatment of the people she cared about was the reason she was lying alone a bed in her tower.

But all this knowledge was of no use to her. All she wanted now was the hand of a loved one in her own.

Rowena finally understood what her parents, her husband, Godric, Helga, Salazar and even Helena had been trying to tell her all her life. Her diadem wasn't the most important thing in her life. If she hadn't been so bent upon creating it, she could have spent more time with her parents and enjoyed their love for the little while she had it. If she hadn't behaved so badly with Gregory, perhaps he would have been with her now. Or if he had already passed, perhaps she could have looked forward to seeing him again.

If she had only given her daughter the attention she had rightly deserved, if she had loved her as much as she had claimed, then Helena would have been at her bedside.

But her diadem had taken them all away. The diadem that she had loved so much had left her wanting. In a way, it had given her wisdom. It had finally taught her that man's greatest treasure wasn't wit; it was love. But it was a lesson she had learnt too late. It was a piece of wisdom that had been repeatedly thrown in her face but that she had ignored in search of 'greater wisdom'.

For all her knowledge, she felt like the most foolish woman in the world.

Her final thought was that she had spent a lifetime searching for what she had thought was man's greatest treasure. But she had, in the end, lost what was most precious to her.

* * *

**Please review and let me know what you thought :) This was for QLFC, reserve for the Kestrels Chaser 3 for round 7**


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